If you want to do any serious typing on the iPad, the iPad Keyboard Dock is going to be a must-have accessory… but what if you want to use your existing Bluetooth keyboard? It’ll already work just fine with your iPad just fine, but the challenge is one of positioning. You need some way to prop your iPad up, monitor like, while you type.

The BookArc from TwelveSouth is a parabola of aluminum lined with silicone to slap your iPad into when you want to do some serious typing. Unlike Apple’s own dock, it supports both horizontal and vertical docking, so you can type in any position.

There’s no launch date or price for the BookArc yet, but if the MacBook Arc is anything to go buy, expect it to cost about $50. That’s probably too much when you can just buy yourself any one of the many kickstand-boasting protective iPad cases about to come to market and have all of the BookArc’s advantages while maintaining portability.

Although a few wishful thinkers held out hope far past Apple’s announcement, it’s pretty clear at this point that the iPad’s not going to have an OS X like dashboard out of the gate… but that’s not to say a third-party developer can’t step in to pick up the slack.

Cernegie Mellon Student Rich Hong has just released this teaser video for his widget-based dashboard app for the iPad. It looks and acts just like OS X’s own Dashboard capabilities, which is great. Just pluck this in your springboard and you”re golden.

There’s no telling if Hong’s Dashboard app will catch-on — third-party widget support will be key here — but it looks fantastic. In fact, with the right widgets, an iPad Dashboard app might allow for some remedial multi-tasking (say, writing a report while simultaneously referencing an article in an adjacent browser widget) until iPhone OS 4.0 creeps out.

[via Techcrunch]

Artist Andrew Fulton wants an iPad, but like most artists, his means are meager. He shaves with a rusty bottle cap to save money on razor blades, he’s sold all the kidneys to the black market that he can, and his only nourishment is Mulligan Stew or the stray baked bean stuck to the inside of a discarded can. What’s a poor pencil slinger to do?

Well, Fulton’s happened upon an ingenious little plan to buy an iPad: sell Apple fans iPad-related art to raise money for his own device. His drawings are cute, quirky, marvelous and bizarre: I thought the iPad-slicing ninja was my favorite until I saw the tongue-kissing duo of blue-skinned aliens sucking face between Apple tablets.

He only wants $20 for a duotone drawing or $125 for a full-color strip. I’m sure some of our readers wouldn’t mind becoming a patron of the arts to help a fellow Mac fan get an iPad of his own.

[via TUAW]

Apple’s been pretty explicit that for right now, there is a maximum order of two iPads per customer… but no one told Apple founder, celebrity dancer and tech enthusiast Steve Wozniak. The affable beardo with the head bigger than the sun has told Newsweek that he’s buying three iPads this weekend.

On Woz’s part, one of the iPads will be the stock WiFi and another 3G model. He’s also ordered an iPad for a friend.

Woz seems to think the iPad will be a big hit: “The iPad could lower the cost of acquiring computers for students. I think it’s going to be huge in the education market. Think about students going off to college. They want an Apple product, but their parents don’t want to spend that much. Now they have the ideal thing.”

As for Wozniak, he’s mostly going to use the iPad for mobile web browsing. “At first I thought, this is not for me. I have the iPhone for mobility and a computer for my computer life. [But] with the iPhone there are certain things it just doesn’t do well, mostly in browsing. It’s horrible to navigate a map on an iPhone because of the screen size.”

Taiwanese chip and touchscreen maker Elan Microelectronics Corp. has asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban the import and sale of some Apple Inc. products —  including the almost-in-your-hands iPad —  alleging patent infringement.

Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch, MacBook, Magic Mouse and iPad use technology which the company claims infringes Elan’s patent “352” granted in 1998 for detecting the simultaneous presence of two or more fingers, Elan said in an email statement today.

“Our goal is to protect our technology and to stop sales of those products in the U.S.,” Elan spokesperson Dennis Liu told Bloomberg.

This isn’t the first time Elan, which bills itself as the “smart human interface expert,” tries to give Apple the eFinger: they filed suit against Apple in a California court over another touscreen patent, “353,” in April last year.

Apple has not yet commented on the suit.

One thing is certain: patent lawyers on both continents will be keeping a shine on their shoes. On March 2, Apple filed a complaint with the ITC against Taiwan’s HTC Corp. alleging its patents were breached, though the cases are not related.

Windows PCs have two distinct keys for deleting text in different directions – delete and backspace. But on some Macs, there’s no sign of anything called “delete”. What gives?

We start off a new week with a deal on unibody MacBook Pro laptops. The refurbished units start at $1,499 for a 2.53GHz model. Next up is a round of always popular App Store Freebies, including “Dungeon Run,” a game for your iPhone and iPod touch. We also check out Sony’s Digital Media Port for the iPod, allowing you to listen to tunes stored on your pod on your Sony stereo.

We also check out some storage options and other accessories. As always, details on these and many other items are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Although it’s never going to replace the iPod in most people’s pockets, Microsoft’s done a lot to overcome the initial missteps with their Zune line of portable media players.

In fact, if not for the overwhelming advantages of the App Store, I’d recommend the Zune HD to people over the iPod Touch. It’s a fantastic media player with a beautiful high-definition screen and a great interface, and it’s available at a wonderfully down-to-earth price: the 32GB Zune HD only costs $199 compared to the 32GB iPod Touch’s price of $299.

Only the Zune platform’s woeful app marketplace makes it a sucker buy for those who want the most of their PMPs: if all you want to do is watch movies or listen to MP3s, the 32GB Zune HD is a great deal.

Now, Microsoft is teasing the imminent release of the 64GB Zune HD. There’s no price available yet, but my guess would be $299, which is $100 cheaper than the 64GB iPod Touch. Whether or not you think that’s a good deal depends a lot on how invested you are in the App Store, but if you’re looking for a great, next-gen PMP at an affordable price, this is one Microsoft product that even an Apple fan can feel pretty good about owning.

Although some questioned Apple’s decision to support HTML 5 over the dominant Flash technology used in so many online ads and graphics, it appears CEO Steve Jobs may have the last laugh. A video platform company Monday announced it will convert Flash videos to HTML 5 for such publishing heavyweights as the New York Times and Time magazine.

As a result, we may see the two when Apple unleashes the iPad on April 3.

The iPad may be selling like gangbusters, but an interesting survey done by NPD suggests that it’s still not the ideal device for a slim majority of computer users: amongst surveyed 18-34 year olds, 51% said they would rather have a more conventional portable like a laptop or netbook than an iPad. Even Apple owners aren’t totally convinced: 44% said they’d rather have a MacBook than an iPad.

According to NPD’s vice president of industry analysis, Stephen Baker: “The most interested potential iPad customers see it primarily as a music device, or for its internet access capabilities.”